Legendary cricket commentator and player Richie Benaud has died in a Sydney hospice at the age of 84.

Benaud had been receiving radiation treatment for skin cancer since November. His family announced that he had died peacefully in his sleep.

Benaud was an all-time great all-rounder cricketer, a crafty leg-spinner who captured 248 wickets in 63 Tests, an attacking lower-order batsman who hit one of the fastest Test centuries, a brilliant gully fielder with amazing reflexes and a crowd puller wherever he played.

He was also a courageous and victorious leader of men, who lost neither a Test series nor his cool.

He was the first cricketer to achieve the Test double of 2000 runs and 200 wickets and, as an all-rounder, ranks as one of the greatest.